Life on the sea has been one of mankind’s enduring visions, but the
technology hasn’t been up to the task... until now. Are we on the cusp
of housing communities permanently on the ocean?

The 1995 film Waterworld was one of Hollywood’s most infamous budget busters – a
mega-million-dollar post-apocalyptic thriller that, at the time, cost
more than any other film ever made.
It did a pretty decent job of
sinking Kevin Costner’s career for the rest of the decade.
More
importantly, it may also have helped do the same to the idea of mankind
living on the sea.

Though scientists aren’t predicting sea-level
rises of the magnitude seen in Waterworld – hundreds of feet thanks to
melting polar ice caps – we may have to plan for a world with much
higher sea levels.
There has long been a dream that one day mankind, or
at least some of us, will live on the ocean.
Designer and architect
Buckminster Fuller saw cities at sea contributing to a sustainable
future for humanity.
But then floating cities evoked images of flop
films, or worse, of wealthy “robber barons” escaping to the high seas
for financial reasons.
Now, several groups are trying to change this
perception by researching technologies that could help create floating
cities, or “seasteads”, which become innovative models of sustainability
and peaceful cooperation.

Does this sound too futuristic?
Then consider China’s Fujian Province, where the Tanka people have been settled at sea
since 700AD.
Pushed into coastal waters in wartime during the Tang
Dynasty, these boat dwellers weren’t allowed to set foot on land until
the second half of the 20th Century. Today, some 7,000 Tankas still
maintain a sea farming life – possibly a preview of a future to come for
many more of us.
Before the industrialisation of agriculture, most
people lived in land-based villages no larger or more complex than the
Tankas’ simple water-based community.
It took a series of green
revolutions in farming technology to allow people to leave rural
communities, and move into densely-populated urban areas.
We see signs
that a “blue revolution” in ocean harvesting technology is underway,
suggesting floating cities can’t be far off.

Supply issues

It
may be a necessity – not merely a novelty – to inhabit the sea in the
coming decades, but to do so will require the means to create reliable
and sustainable food and power souces.
Dwindling fish stocks from
overfishing have prompted humanity to create farmed supplies, beginning
with the most accessible environments on or near land.
Yet most fish
farming has not evolved beyond the low-tech cages and seaweed-draped
lines anchored in shallow seas by ancient peoples like the Tankas.
The
most advanced methods of mass production employ harmful antibiotics and
genetically modified feed in unnaturally crowded ponds on land.

Farms on the current

Hawaii-based Kampachi Farms have
created a fish cage that can be towed

and flushed clean by ocean
currents, cutting down on pollution.

But
the drawbacks of current fish farming has created opportunities for
technology like the floating “drifter pens” pioneered by Kampachi Farms.
Given enough time, Kampachi Farms will replace stagnant ponds with
GPS-tracked cages stitched out of copper wire to enable a constant
inflow of fresh ocean water without flushing out the precious fish.
These geodesic aquariums, inspired by Fuller’s prototypes for sturdy
light-weight structures, will be let loose in swirling ocean gyres,
where they only need occasional course-correction to maintain a rough
position.
This will be accomplished by nimble harvesting vessels driven
by pioneers of this new life on the water.

Collapsing fisheries
are of immediate concern, but land-based agriculture may also be in
danger due to a predicted shortage of the crucial nutrient phosphorus by the year 2050.
Once again, there could be a solution out at sea.

Blue Revolution Hawaii,
led by Professor Patrick Takahashi, is another group planning for a
future with thousands of floating cities.
Takahashi and his team have
devised a plan to enable large ships equipped with ocean thermal
electric conversion, or Otec plants, in which warm surface waters
interact with cold water “upwelled” from the deep ocean to drive a large
power turbine.
The cool water pumped to the surface contains the exact
ratio of nutrients – including phosphorus – needed to support plant
growth.

Otec technology has already been tested in Hawaii, and China’s Reignwood
group recently announced plans to complete a 10 megawatt plant – the
first on the open-ocean – not far from the Fujian Province in China’s
southern seas.
Living space may be cramped at first, but the abundant
sunlight and acres surrounding these pods will be enough to feed vast
ocean ranches, supercharged by Otec’s nutrient-rich byproduct.
At the
bottom of this food chain, algae will feed fish, which feed bigger fish,
which will in turn feed seafarers and land-lubbers alike.
Sinking fish
waste and seaweed detritus will gradually sequester carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere and deposit it on the seafloor to restart nature’s
eons-long process of creating fossil fuels.
By 2050, it’s not
far-fetched to imagine hundreds of these plants grazing the high seas,
trading abundant seafood surpluses with cities on land.

From rig to refuge

Shell is planning to build a massive
floating structure, the Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas facility,
which could then be converted after gas is exploited.

Meanwhile,
Shell is preparing to anchor the world’s largest floating offshore
structure – the Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas facility – off
Australia’s north-west coast in 2014.
The structure will be massive –
the length of four football fields and one field wide.
It will be built
to withstand Category Five typhoons, and will produce the natural gas
equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
While few groups could
afford to build a floating city capable of weathering such storms,
Shell’s example demonstrates the long-lived feasibility of living on the
sea.
In fact, most fundamental challenges of living safely on the ocean
have been solved by offshore drilling or shipping companies (cruise
lines got satellite internet years ago, while most of Asia and Africa
still lack it).
Costs will fall over time.
And what is Shell going to do
with Prelude once all the natural gas runs out?
The infrastructure for
a marine community will be waiting to be used.

Free floating

Blue horizons

The Seasteading Institute is investigating
several designs, including one where pre-fabricated dwellings are
delivered by cargo ships.

(Anthony Ling/Seasteading Institute)

The Seasteading Institute has also been dealing with the challenges faced by communities trying to live permanently on the ocean.
It is an audacious but essentially pragmatic endeavour.
Taking a cue
from the Tanka people, the plan is locate in the protected, territorial
waters of a nation willing to “host” the structures and their
inhabitants.
With help from the Dutch aquatic architecture firm DeltaSync,
the institute hopes to design something that will meet the needs of
residents, and the host nation.
From a calm coastal area, the logistical
challenges needed allow a community to live on the high seas can be
solved one at a time.

Floating concept

British designer Phil Pauley’s concept
is of floating modules that can be rest on the surface in good weather –
and submerge when conditions worsen.

British designer Phil Pauley has developed a concept for a sea habitat
comprising interconnected spherical modules that could submerge during
storms and rest at the surface in good weather.
The long vertical
trusses holding up Pauley’s design use Fuller’s principles for strong,
lightweight “tensegrity” structures.
They maximise support without using
too much expensive material such as steel.
To reach much deeper waters,
communities will ditch the stilts and float freely or anchor.
Others
are trying investigating this technique on a smaller scale too.
Do-it-yourself sea-living enthusiast Vince Cate has been using
prototyping simple “ball stead” homes, which achieve buoyancy and stable
surface “real estate.”
Testing models in the Caribbean Sea, near his
home in Anguilla, Cate has found that suspending a heavy weight well
below the surface keeps the ball from moving amid the waves.

Light but strong

The modules use famed designer
Buckminster Fuller’s idea of tensegrity – making strong but lightweight
structures that use little in the way of steel.

And
these structures could last for a very long time indeed.
Simple cement
structures, reinforced with steel, can displace massive amounts of
water, and last for decades - or even centuries.
Even after 2,000 years
of the sea’s harsh beating, a Roman harbour
built with a mixture of standard concrete and volcanic ash is still
intact.
Electro-accretion – essentially sticking concrete-like minerals
on galvanized underwater structures – means electrified steel mesh could
eventually be used to reinforce and repair underwater concrete
structures.

Luxury living

Some of the designs for ocean living
resemble five-star hotels.

Life on the oceans may include all the
creature comforts we expect.

(Andras Gyorfi/Seasteading Institute)

The first floating city is expected to take to the
water around 2020.
We are already researching ways to harvest food and
energy in deeper, more remote parts of the ocean. Future cities built
from scratch will be more dynamic, energy-efficient and flexible.
These
cities of the sea could use algal biofuel production and store energy
from wind and the Sun.
As designs improve – and get cheaper – the idea
of a home on the ocean will become more affordable.

Does all of
this sound crazy?
In a sense, it is.
But some would prefer to be called
crazy than to pretend our cities and species can keep going with the
status quo.